J. T. Murphy
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John Thomas Murphy (9 December 1888 – 13 May 1965) was a British
trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
organiser and
Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
functionary. Murphy is best remembered as a leader of the communist labour movement in the United Kingdom from the middle 1920s until his resignation from the
Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...
in 1932.


Biography


Early years

J.T. Murphy, known to his peers as "Jack," was born on 9 December 1888 in
Gorton Gorton is an area of Manchester in North West England, southeast of the city centre. The population at the 2011 census was 36,055. Neighbouring areas include Levenshulme and Openshaw. A major landmark is Gorton Monastery, a 19th-century Hi ...
,
Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
.David Mayall, "John Thomas Murphy," in A. Thomas Lane (ed.), ''Biographical Dictionary of European Labor Leaders: M-Z.'' Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995; pg. 683. His father, a
Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
, worked as a blacksmith, while his
Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
mother worked as a baker. Murphy helped with the family finances from the age of 7, initially selling his mother's baked goods before taking a job working as an assistant on a milk round. Murphy began working at an engineering works in an entry-level capacity in 1901, soon moving into a formal engineering apprenticeship, in which he remained until 1908. Thereafter Murphy worked as an engineer in his own right, remaining as a worker at the bench until 1918. He became active in the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers The Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE) was a major British trade union, representing factory workers and mechanics. History The history of the union can be traced back to the formation of the Journeymen Steam Engine, Machine Makers' and M ...
and was active in the Sheffield wing of the
Shop Stewards Movement The Shop Stewards Movement was a movement which brought together shop stewards from across the United Kingdom during the First World War. It originated with the Clyde Workers Committee, the first shop stewards committee in Britain, which organised a ...
, which emerged in engineering factories during the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.


Communist functionary

Murphy joined the Socialist Labour Party (SLP) in 1916 and stood as a candidate in the 1918 General Election for the Gorton constituency in
Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
. He was elected to the governing Executive Committee of the SLP, in which capacity he participated in unity discussions between the various
revolutionary socialist Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revoluti ...
groups which had emerged in the country. The SLP split at this juncture, with Murphy and others first establishing the
Communist Unity Group The Communist Unity Group (CUG) was a small communist organisation in the United Kingdom. The origins of the group lay in the Socialist Labour Party (1903-1980), Socialist Labour Party (SLP). The SLP was a De Leonist group, but in support of the ...
in January 1919. He joined the
Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...
at its formation in 1920. In January 1920 Murphy travelled illegally to
Soviet Russia The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
, where he attended with John S. Clarke,
Helen Crawfurd Helen Crawfurd ( Jack, later Anderson; 9 November 1877 – 18 April 1954) was a Scottish suffragette, rent strike organiser, Communist activist and politician. Born in Glasgow, she was brought up there and in London. Biography Born Helen Jack ...
, Williie Gallacher, Wlliam McLaine,
Sylvia Pankhurst Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was a campaigning English feminist and socialist. Committed to organising working-class women in London's East End, and unwilling in 1914 to enter into a wartime political truce with ...
,
Marjory Newbold Marjory Newbold (25 May 1883 – 15 November 1926) was a leading Scottish socialist and communist, prominent in the Independent Labour Party and in the 'Red Clydeside' movement demanding reforms for the working class. Newbold organised pacifist ...
,
Tom Quelch Thomas Quelch (1886–1954) was a British journalist and the son of veteran Marxist Harry Quelch. a member of the British Socialist Party in the early part of the 20th century, becoming a communist activist in Great Britain in the 1920s. Quelch ...
,
Dave Ramsay Dave Ramsay (born March 18, 1970 in Saint John, New Brunswick) is a Yellowknife businessman and politician. Political career Ramsay first ran for a seat in the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly in the 1999 Northwest Territories general ...
and Jack Tanner at the
2nd World Congress of the Comintern The 2nd World Congress of the Communist International was a gathering of approximately 220 voting and non-voting representatives of Communist and revolutionary socialist political parties from around the world, held in Petrograd and Moscow from J ...
as delegate for the
Shop Stewards Movement The Shop Stewards Movement was a movement which brought together shop stewards from across the United Kingdom during the First World War. It originated with the Clyde Workers Committee, the first shop stewards committee in Britain, which organised a ...
. Murphy also was a delegate to the First World Congress of the
Red International of Labor Unions The Red International of Labor Unions (russian: Красный интернационал профсоюзов, translit=Krasnyi internatsional profsoyuzov, RILU), commonly known as the Profintern, was an international body established by the Comm ...
(RILU) in July 1921, which elected him a member of the organisation's executive committee. Murphy was also elected as a delegate of the CPGB to the
Third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * Second#Sexagesimal divisions of calendar time and day, 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (d ...
and Fourth World Congresses of the Communist International, held in
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
in 1921 and 1922, respectively. In 1925 Murphy was one of twelve CPGB officials imprisoned for
seditious libel Sedition and seditious libel were criminal offences under English common law, and are still criminal offences in Canada. Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection a ...
and incitement to
mutiny Mutiny is a revolt among a group of people (typically of a military, of a crew or of a crew of pirates) to oppose, change, or overthrow an organization to which they were previously loyal. The term is commonly used for a rebellion among member ...
under the
Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797 The Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797 (37 Geo 3 c 70) was an Act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain. The Act was passed in the aftermath of the Spithead and Nore mutinies and aimed to prevent the seduction of sailors and soldiers to commit mu ...
. Murphy was sentenced to six months in prison, and released in 1926. Murphy was active in the
National Minority Movement The National Minority Movement was a British organisation, established in 1924 by the Communist Party of Great Britain, which attempted to organise a radical presence within the existing trade unions. The organization was headed by longtime unio ...
, the British section of RILU, from the time of its formation in 1924. He was also a member of the executive committee of CPGB from its formation in 1920 until his resignation from the party in 1932.


Post-communist years

Murphy resigned from the CPGB in 1932. After leaving the communist movement, Murphy joined the Labour Party and was elected to the executive of their branch in Islington.Ralph Darlington, ''The Political Trajectory of J.T. Murphy.'' Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1998; pg. 217. Then in April 1933 he joined the Socialist League, becoming general secretary of that organisation later in the year. He would retain that position until his resignation from the Socialist League in 1936, opposing its call for the CPGB to be permitted to affiliate to the Labour Party. He became a founder of and full-time organiser for the People's Front Propaganda Committee, which aimed to unite members of all parties against fascism and the British government's indifference to or appeasement of it. He spoke in favour of this policy at Labour's 1939 conference, but was heavily defeated, and the committee soon dissolved. The
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
broke out shortly afterwards, and Murphy returned to work as a turner, also becoming a shop steward again for the AEU. He argued in favour of the Hitler–Stalin pact on the grounds that, he believed, Stalin had no choice in order to buy time. Later in the war, he lectured to troops on political matters, and wrote three books supporting Stalin and the Soviet Union. After the war, Murphy stopped all formal political activity, spending much of his time writing company histories, including one of
Marks and Spencer Marks and Spencer Group plc (commonly abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks's or Marks & Sparks) is a major British multinational retailer with headquarters in Paddington, London that specialises in selling clothing, beauty, home ...
and one of
Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company wa ...
. Following Stalin's death, he renounced
Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
and, later, wrote an article detailing his thoughts on the subject for the ''
New Reasoner ''The New Reasoner'' was a British journal of dissident Communism published from 1957 to 1959 by John Saville and E.P. Thompson. The publication is best remembered as an antecedent of the long running journal ''New Left Review.'' ''The Reasone ...
''.Darlington, ''The Political Trajectory of J.T. Murphy,'' pp. 253-260.


Death and legacy

J. T. Murphy died on 13 May 1965 aged 76. His son,
Edward Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sa ...
, was a first-class cricketer and doctor.


Footnotes


Works

* ''The Workers' Committee: An Outline of Its Principles and Structure.'' (1917) *
First Year of the Lenin School
' (1927) * ''The Labour Government: An Examination of Its Record.'' (1930) * ''Preparing for Power: A Critical Study of the History of the British Working Class Movement.'' (1934) * ''New Horizons.'' (1941) —Memoir * ''Stalin, 1879-1944.'' (1945) * ''Labour's Big Three: A Biographical Study of Clement Attlee, Herbert Morrison and Ernest Bevin.'' (1948)


External links



Marxists Internet Archive Marxists Internet Archive (also known as MIA or Marxists.org) is a non-profit online encyclopedia that hosts a multilingual library (created in 1990) of the works of communist, anarchist, and socialist writers, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels ...
. {{DEFAULTSORT:Murphy, J. T. 1888 births 1965 deaths Communist Party of Great Britain members Trade unionists from Manchester British communists English people of Irish descent People from Gorton Socialist Labour Party (UK, 1903) members Politics of Sheffield Labour Party (UK) people